Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Screenshots: Google OS in pics

First look at the Android 4.1 features to get excited about

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Google Now

Like Siri but for Android, Google Now brings a more sophisticated way of getting information you need both quickly and efficiently. Using your search and location history a series of 'cards' which look inspired by a similar design seen on the Palm Pre, will display information throughout the day to help you find out about the best bus route to get to work or the latest results for your favourite sports team.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Google Now Unlock

Similar to the Camera Unlock introduced in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean users can now jump straight into the new intelligent search engine Google Now from the unlock screen.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Project Butter

As ridiculous as the name sounds, Project Butter seeks to improve navigating around your smartphone or tablet, making vital changes under the hood which makes everything quicker and should deliver an improved touch response when you are scrolling through your apps for instance.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Google Now

One of the ways you can access Google Now is by swiping up from the home button to access the intelligent information system that integrates the improved voice search that could blow Siri out of the water.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Camera

The decision not to include a rear-facing camera on the Nexus 7 means the tablet misses out on a some nice new additions to the Camera app. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean smartphone snappers will however be able to benefit from being able to review photos straight from the camera application and swipe away photos you don't want to keep similar to the way you can dismiss applications using the Recent App feature still present from Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Google Maps

As well as making content available offline and including additional reviews for chosen locations, Google Compass has been integrated deeper into Maps particularly in the new indoor mode which lets you look around the room of a restaurant for example to get a more detailed viewing of the location you plan to visit.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Android Beam

Already available to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich devices, the latest version of Android Beam allows users to send video and images by simply tapping two NFC-supporting devices together.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Re-sizing widgets

As Apple's iOS operating system remains widget-less, Google continues to refine the feature with users now able to drag widgets onto homescreens, which then automatically shifts app icons around it allowing you to change the size of the widget depending on how much space you are willing to give up for it.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Google Play

The biggest improvements to Google's content store is the addition of magazines, TV shows and movies which you can now rent and buy. The bad news is that like Google Music, the extra content has yet to be confirmed for the UK version of Google Play when the Nexus 7 officially lands.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Voice Search and smarter keyboard

As well as a slick new user interface, the capabilities of voice search have been vastly improved most notably with the ability to dictate messages and sans keyboard whilst in offline mode.

The predictive keyboard has also been improved to learn your typing habits intelligently overtime, which should mean you make less potentially embarrassing text message mistakes.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Expandable notifications

One of the biggest successes of Android has been the notification bar which now becomes even more useful with the ability to expand notifications and interact with without launching another application. So if someone has mentioned you on Twitter, you can reply right from the notification.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Browser

Building on the enhanced functionality introduced in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the Nexus 7 will be the first Android tablet to have Google Chrome as the standard web browser. That means you can expect speedy page loading and the ability to sync favourite sites from your desktop straight out of the box.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Calendar and Face Unlock

The new calendar app now allows users to send emails out to everyone if for instance you can't make a meeting, while Face Unlock now supports Blink detection which should help make the security feature, well, more secure by indentifying whether the person trying to unlock the phone is in fact human and not just a photo.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: Google Sound Search (Google Ears)

Introducing a much deeper integration of Google Play into the Jelly Bean UI, this Shazaam-like widget can identify a song, revealing information about the track name, artists and the album it is taken from.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: YouTube HD

The video sharing app has been given an HD makeover, bringing an interface much more suited to the 7-inch surroundings of the Nexus 7 including the side navigation bar to quickly jump into categories like 'trending' videos and recommended clips.